Today we know that children can learn to be good readers by listening to literature, discussing literature, reading literature and writing about it. When learning happens in a meaningful and integrated manner, children acquire skills because they are truly needed for communication.

With the integrated method, teachers provide many opportunities for children to experience a variety of wonderful literature that is our heritage. Teachers read to students, offering a model of skillful oral reading, while whetting their appetite for good stories. They provide many kinds of books in the classrooms. Many classrooms have reading corners for quiet reading, writing centers that include materials for illustrating books, and areas for making and staging plays.

Children will be taught strategies for decoding words, in a variety of meaningful contexts. Students will attain a basic sight vocabulary and an enriched vocabulary as they explore the great world of literature. Students learn the conventions of the English language, including correct usage, grammatical correctness, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization, through listening, speaking, reading and writing and through direct instruction.

Parents and teachers have always been interested in helping children to read; now they can help them explore literature. The reading ability of children improves when they learn to be good listeners and thinkers in both home and school discussion. Their self-esteem increases when they know adults listen to and value their opinions and ideas. Reading to children plants the seeds of love for reading. Trips to the library and checking out books are extremely worthwhile. Children copy their parents when they see them reading. Parents and teachers who love to read books are role models for children who are successful in reading and learning language skills. Parents and teachers want children to view reading as a pleasurable activity.

Overview: Kindergarten students will develop an interest in an enjoyment of reading by paying attention to stories read to them, telling a story, watching as it is written down and listening as their stories are read aloud. They will also learn to handle a book appropriately. A rich spoken language experience will help children learn new vocabulary. Students will have experiences that encourage self-expression.

Expectations: Students will learn to:

Oral Communication:

Listening - Students will be able to:

• Listen to and enjoy a wide variety of stories, poems, and age-appropriate literature that form a base for conversation and communication.

• Listen to and follow oral directions.

• Listen politely.

Participating in discussions - Students will be able to:

• Speak audibly in complete sentences

• Respectfully take turns when speaking

• Recite nursery rhymes, poems, alphabet, chants and sing-songs.

• Discuss stories and relate personal experiences and culture to the stories.

• Ask pertinent questions for understanding and respond appropriately to questions of others.

• Retell a story through words and drama.

Presenting Ideas - Students will be able to:

• Speak comfortably before a group.

• Make predictions about characters and story endings

• Express opinions in different subject areas.

• Relate ideas in sequence.

• Make informal oral presentations

Reading:

Learning to Read - Students will be able to:

• Track words and sentences with one to one correspondence.

• Recognize and name the letters of the alphabet (both upper and lower case).

• Recognize that there is a consistency in the spelling of words.

• Recognize their names, signs, labels, etc. found in their environment.

• Recognize high frequency sight vocabulary words.

Essential Strategies and Skills - Students will be able to:

• Recognize that every letter has a related speech sound.

• Recognize rhyming words and word family patterns. (cat, fat, mat, etc.)

• Blend sounds into words (c - a - t) and separate words into sounds.

• Recognize beginning consonant sounds.

• Use background experience and pictures to predict words and outcomes in stories.

• Identify main characters, setting, problem, and solution in a story.

• Understand that stories have a beginning, middle, and an end.

• Interpret meaning from pictures.

• Orally complete framed sentences.

• Understand position words such as over, under, below, beside, etc. and comparison words such as big, bigger, biggest, etc.

Responding to Text - Students will be able to:

• Express reactions to stories through discussion, role playing, and art.

• Summarize a story and make simple evaluations and interpretation of content.

• Act out or retell stories or folk tales from a variety of cultures.

• Evaluate characters in stories.

• Use existing story structures to create new stories.

• Compare and contrast different versions of stories.

• Distinguish between real and make-believe aspects of stories.

• Make value judgements in response to stories.

• Connect what is read with real experiences.

Independent Reading - Students will be able to:

• Choose reading matter from age-appropriate books.

• Choose to read for pleasure.

Writing:

Learning to Write - Students will be able to:

• Practice writing behavior.

• Write own name with appropriate upper and lower case letters.

• Draw pictures related to stories and experiences.

• Copy words and sentences.

• Write words using temporary spelling.

• Dictate stories and sentences across subject areas.

Effective Writing - Students will be able to:

• Generate writing ideas and information through brainstorming with the teacher.

• Begin to use computers to facilitate the writing process.

• Share story writing with peers, teachers, and family members.

• Use suggestions to improve writing.

Writing for a Variety of Purposes and Audiences - Students will be able to:

• Write and draw in journals.

• Dictate captions to accompany art work.

• Write notes and letters to friends and family.

• Contribute ideas to class stories.

• Write and dictate across subject areas.

• Create oral stories.

Conventions of Writing - Students will be able to:

• Write in left to right and top to bottom order.

• Leave spaces between words.

• Write and trace letters of the alphabet. (Upper and lower case)

• Write numerals 1 to 10.

Informational Literacy:

Accessing, Evaluating, and Organizing Information - Students will be able to:

• Recognize graphs as a way of organizing information.

• Recognize that dictionaries, books, and encylopedias are sources of information.

• Recognize that libraries are sources of information.

• Recognize that computers are sources of information.

• Participate in organizing information into graphs, charts, diagrams, etc.

MATH

Overview: The Kindergarten mathematics curriculum will encourage and develop students' self confidence as mathematical problem solvers. Students will begin to learn skills to enable them to function in the ever changing world. Students will become mathematically powerful by learning how to think and communicate orally and in writing. Students will relate math to the real world.

Projects and activities in kindergarten revolve around the central theme of "Discovering and Verbalizing Relationships." The ability to think logically about relationships between particular objects or ideas is vital to mathematical thinking.

The core curriculum materials for kindergarten are in the MathLand program.

Expectations: Working in centers and as a class, students will learn to:

Data Analysis:

• Gather data about ourselves.

• Put events into sequential order.

• Compare likenesses and differences.

Patterns and Functions:

• Discover, extend and record a variety of patterns.

• Make predictions about patterns.

• Create, record and describe linear patterns.

Number Relations/Number Sense:

Developing a Concept of Number:

• Group objects to show numbers 1-10.

• Arrange objects without altering the number of objects in a group.

• Identify a one-more relationship within the counting sequence.

Counting and Comparing Numbers to TEN:

• Use one-to-one correspondence when counting objects.

• Sort and record groups of objects by their number.

• Compare numbers to see which is more and which is less.

• Put numbers in order.

Extending Number Concepts:

• Find smaller numbers in larger numbers (combinations to 10).

• Find all the number combinations for a number, such as 0 + 5, 1 + 4, 2 + 3.

• Use one-to-one correspondence to count groups of 1 to 100 objects.

• Show that different patterns can be created from the same number of pattern blocks.

Logic and Algebra:

• Sort objects and pictures.

• Sort and record objects using different attributes.

• Identify sorting rules.

Geometry and Visual Thinking:

• Sort and classify Pattern Block shapes.

• Learn the properties of three-dimensional shapes.

• Recognize a shape regardless of its orientation in space.

Measurement:

• Measure and compare objects.

• Use special language to describe the attributes of an object.

SCIENCE

Overview: Young children are most curious about the world. In grades kindergarten through third, the science program uses this natural joy of learning in ways that make science enjoyable, interesting, and meaningful. Teachers show an enthusiasm for science and its dynamic presence in our daily lives. Students are given time to explore and begin to construct their own meaning as they acquire knowledge of the life, physical, and earth sciences.

Expectations:

1. Observe and describe characteristics of living things.

2. Observe life cycles and seasonal changes of trees and other living things.

3. Observe, describe, and compare the structures of a variety of common animals--fish, snails, earthworms, isopods, and chicks.

4. Identify objects made of paper and explore its many uses.

5. Compare physical properties such as texture, thickness, absorption.

6. Explore trees and water as important natural resources.

7. Observe that people use natural resources for shelters, food, clothing, and other daily activities.

8. Observe how animals adapt to their habitat.

9. Observe how people can keep the environment clean.

10. Observe, communicate, compare, order, and categorize the natural environment.

HISTORY/SOCIAL SCIENCE

Overview: The primary curriculum builds on what young children already know when they begin kindergarten. They have developed important understandings of space, time, cause, and effect. These connect the child to his or her world. Children begin to see the world as orderly, rule-governed, and predictive. In primary grades, children begin to study geography and history through literature and primary source documents but these are always connected to the child's space and time. Each year, through the grades studies begin with the immediate present and move on to develop links with the larger geographic and economic world. Each year children study people and events from the past to build sensitivity and appreciation for contributions which affect their lives today. Multicultural education plays a major role in the curriculum.

KINDERGARTEN THEME: Learning and working now and long ago.

Expectations: The student will learn to:

1. identify and observe similarities and differences of people and families both in the present and the past.

2. share, take turns, respect the rights of others and develop appropriate classroom behavior recognizing that school is a place to work and learn.

3. understand and respect cultural differences among individuals within the classroom.

4. build sense of self and self worth through working together and independently.

5. develop a sense of pride, good work habits, and encourage independence.

6. understand the importance of acquiring information and knowledge, i.e. recognizing places in the neighborhood and at school.

7. understand how to use a chart, simple picture or bar graph.

8. organize data using sequence terms (first, second).

9. recognize and appreciate the United States flag; recognize and appreciate the symbols and songs of the USA.

10. compare maps, photos and the real environment; use simple locational terms, directional terms; construct maps.

Overview: A planned physical education program promotes a student's physical, mental and social well being. The learning of skills enables a student to participate in activities throughout life. A physical education fitness program for primary children should be based upon learning the fundamentals of movement and building a foundation for physical fitness.

Expectations: Students will learn to:

1. listen and follow directions.

2. identify basic body parts and develop a sense of body awareness and control.

3. develop body coordination through game skills (catching a ball, hitting a target, bouncing a ball, kicking a ball, using different kinds of manipulatives as hoops, bean bags, and nerf balls).

4. develop movement and fitness skills (hop, jump, gallop, skip, walk and run).

5. safely use small and large apparatus (bean bags, ropes, balance beams, balls, climbing equipment, etc.)

6. follow game rules, work cooperatively and safely with others, follow the concept of fairness.

7. develop positive attitude toward themselves and others.

8. respect individual skill differences.

9. participate in multicultural music, dance, and games.

10. develop space awareness through group activities.

11. enjoy physical activity.

12. Accept individual differences in motor performance.

** We would like the Parent Help Guidelines and profile of child included at grade level.

Parents can help their children by:

° exercising large muscles, i.e. running, jumping, skipping, hopping, walking, jogging, galloping.

° exercising small muscles, i.e. counting small objects, coloring, play-doh or clay, Legos.

° providing nutritious food and sufficient rest and sleep.

° encourage children to play safely outside instead of watching TV excessively.

° establish a regular, frequent schedule of family sports and/or physical activity.

The health curriculum is supportive of healthy living through health literacy which includes: acceptance of personal responsibility; respect for and promotion of the health of others; an understanding of the process of growth and development; and informed use of health-related information, products, and services.

Overview: The curriculum focuses on children and what they can do to promote their well-being. Choosing behaviors that contribute to good health in their environment and daily living activities is emphasized.

Expectations:

1. Identify those members in the community that can be helpful (doctor, nurse, fire fighter, law enforcement officer, etc.).

2. Identify safety hazards and safety rules in the classroom, in the home, in a motor vehicle, and how to contact family, neighbor, or 911.

3. Recognize proper habits for personal care.

4. Identify substances which can look good, but can be harmful.

5. Recognize foods that contribute to health and those that do not.

6. Build awareness of (universal precautions) and environmental hazards.

7. Develop the knowledge of the value of self and others; and how to relate to family and others.

8. Be cautious with people they do not know.

9. Follow definite procedures during a major emergency.

10. Demonstrate respect for individual and family values and traditions.